World Cup Soccer Series, Introduction

As many of you know, in a few days, Brazil will welcome 32 soccer teams from as many countries, for the FIFA World Cup. The world’s most beloved sport, known as soccer in the USA, is called football everywhere else. I will call it soccer because I live in the United States.

I grew up in Romania, where soccer is a big deal. Girls did not play soccer. It was considered a male sport. It has been an adjustment to understand that here, in the USA, girls play soccer alongside the boys. And, generally speaking, soccer is viewed as a softer, less masculine sporting event compared to American football.

When it came time to consider P.E. options for our homeschool, in addition to all the hiking, biking and swimming we do with our children, we added soccer. I was glad to find a soccer program for our son at Berean Christian School in Knoxville. Their coach, Mike McDonald, is a former professional soccer player from England. He has also played professionally here in the USA. He has been in commercials with David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and other greats.

Why am I telling you all this?

My multilingual blogger friends have come up with a project called World Cup for Kids – a series of posts we will put together on the countries playing during the World Cup. If your child is excited about soccer, this would be a great way to introduce him to different cultures, foods, and languages.

I chose Italy. Italian is so close to Romanian. Besides, I have a great admiration for Italian anything, whether it is their language, food, architecture, music, art, cars, or vacation spots.

Every time La Squadra Azzurra plays during the World Cup, I will post about some aspect of Italian culture: a pizza recipe, a duet by two of my favorite singers, Eros Ramazzotti and Luciano Pavarotti, and some other fun things.